Agency-SSP partnerships are growing more common – and blurring programmatic’s old dividing lines

In response, agencies are looking to tie themselves closer to SSPs, striking new partnership deals, leaning further into established ones, and consolidating their programmatic investments through the largest players in that space. Such partnerships were limited to the industry’s largest investment houses, but execs at SSPs including PubMatic told Digiday they’re now attempting to reach beyond the major holding company networks.

Since March, Stagwell’s Assembly — one of the largest media agencies outside the traditional “big six” — has cut the number of SSPs it pushes spend through from 20 to a “core four,” of AdEx, OpenX, Magnite and Xandr, according to Christopher Milano, vp of supply.

Milano estimated the agency was now pushing 80% of its programmatic investments through those SSPs, with the remaining 20% held back for specialist investments, experiments or markets where its preferred SSPs don’t have adequate coverage. “We’re actively pushing more of our spend to those four partners,” Milano said.

The push follows a path initially beaten by holdcos, most of which continue to pursue deeper relationships to sharpen their competitive edge.

Havas Media U.K.’s director of programmatic Layla Malki told Digiday that partnership deals with companies like Magnite and Pubmatic granted it easier access to premium ad inventory, something she said was a major pull when choosing an SSP partner. “The scale and quality of inventory is the number one thing,” said Malki.

WPP Media (née GroupM), meanwhile, has begun to rely more heavily on its direct relationship with SSP Pubmatic, initially dating back o 2019, as part of a broader push for media quality and automation in the buying process.

From agencies’ perspective, there are a number of benefits. First, there’s the demand for premium ad inventory. Using the same rationale behind curation and inclusion lists, agencies can (in theory) ensure they’re only buying top-drawer media by only working with SSPs they know can provide it.

“Historically, agencies have worked more closely with DSPs than SSPs, in part because they wanted the greatest number of impressions for the lowest possible price,” noted eMarketer analyst Max Willens in an email. “As agencies and their clients have grown more focused on quality, rather than purely on quantity, that has shifted their focus. This has made SSPs more attractive as partners, because they are closer to the most sought-after inventory.”

Secondly, by striking deals with SSPs they’re often able to find cost savings – both by avoiding the tech fees associated with relying totally on a DSP, and through so-called “post auction” discounts applied by SSPs to future inventory, for agencies that meet a pre-agreed investment threshold. Neither Malki nor Milano shared details of the discounts their agencies have been able to access.

“It’s possible that more of these deals could deliver better value for clients as well: an agency that commits to spending huge sums with an SSP is likely to unlock some preferential pricing, even on its publisher partners’ most valuable inventory,” said Willens.

There’s also a push for greater transparency, noted Willens. A smaller pool of SSPs (and a look into a part of the investment process obscured by DSP platforms) means agencies can apply greater scrutiny to their media investments. 

“You can focus more on the details by having fewer partners,” said Milano, rather than “let the DSP figure it out.” He noted that Assembly’s four deals grant it full URL transparency from publishers, a measure that agencies and advertisers often use to guard against ad fraud.

Matt Sattel, chief revenue officer at OpenX, said that in some cases the partnerships have allowed agencies to become involved in the development of new tools or features, like Results by OpenX, an identity solution the company unveiled this year; Omnicom media shop OMD was the tool’s beta partner.

Since the agency partnerships offer them the chance to reap a bigger share of programmatic ad spending than if media buyers solely operated through DSPs, execs at SSPs are happy to encourage the trend. 

More than half (55%) of the investment funnelled through Pubmatic’s platform, for example, now stems from partnership deals with agencies, according to the firm’s chief revenue officer Kyle Dozeman.

He said Pubmatic sees “a huge opportunity” in adding to its agency partnerships. Now it has relationships with each of the big six holdcos, it’s looking towards the indie sector. “That’s a huge growth segment for us,” Dozeman said.

It’s not the only one. “We are now burrowing into full service agencies, not just holdcos,” said Kunal Nagpal, chief business officer at SSP InMobi Advertising.

To be clear, agency-SSP deals don’t cut DSPs totally out of the picture. Per Milano, the media dollars Assembly invests on behalf of clients are still processed through a DSP, and Assembly partially chose the SSPs it now works with based on their integrations with its preferred DSPs.

“There’s still a really big value in DSPs,” said Malki.

Links between SSPs and media shops go back as far as the industry’s years-long supply-path optimization (SPO) efforts. But agencies like Assembly have accelerated their efforts this year, contributing to a blurring of the old lines between supply and demand in the programmatic world.

DSPs like The Trade Desk have looked to reach around agencies to forge relationships with advertisers through its recent push for joint business plans, as well as working directly with publishers via Openpath. 

The growing ties between SSPs and agencies represent a different branch on the same tree. “SSPs want to be DSPs and DSPs want to be SSPs,” said Milano.